Aaron Judge, after a 16-game career without a home run — a “drought” that received excessive attention — is on one of his home run binges again.

After his two-run shot in the seventh inning on Thursday night against the Orioles, the outfielder has homered in five straight games and seven of his last twelve games, giving him an MLB-leading 58.

There is a good chance that the Yankees captain will reach the 60-homer plateau twice in three seasons.

But just as impressive, and in some ways even more impressive, is the fact that Judge, also for the second time in three seasons, is a candidate to win the American League Triple Crown.

In addition to leading the league in homers and RBIs (144), Judge is hitting .325, which is tied for the second-highest batting average in the AL with Toronto’s Vlad Guerrero Jr. (.325) behind Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. (.332) .

When Judge won his first MVP in 2022, in addition to the AL-record 62 homers and MLB-leading 131 RBIs, he hit .311 and finished second in batting average behind the Twins’ Luis Arraez (.316).

“I mean, he’s Aaron Judge,” Aaron Boone said before Thursday’s game. Judge was one of the few sluggers capable of scoring for power and average. “What we see is looking at a historically great player. He is very proud of it. It’s clear that his power speaks for itself. But he takes great pride in being a versatile hitter. And I think he, like a lot of great players in any sport, is determined and obsessed with getting a little bit better at baseball year after year.”

Batting average has slowly become de-emphasized in sports over the past two decades as virtually all teams are run to some degree by baseball people steeped in analytics.

It’s not uncommon that when batting average is discussed with that crowd, words like “meaningless” and “irrelevant,” among others, are heard.

A degree of recalibration in that regard has taken place in recent years among some teams – the Royals would be an example – where batting average, while not emphasized as it once was, is not outwardly dismissed as at least somewhat relevant. when judging a hitter.

But regardless of who leads the teams, one constituency for whom batting average still matters is the players.

And Judge, who has described himself as “old school” when it comes to the game throughout his career, is high on the list of players for whom it is important.

A lot of.

“For me, judging the hitter has always been about average,” Judge said late in his 2022 MVP season. “I may be a little old-fashioned, but can you hit or can you hit? It’s always been a goal of mine to try to get to that point and do that.”

While studying at Fresno State, Judge would often reminisce about at-bats by Miguel Cabrera, the MLB’s last Triple Crown winner (2012 with the Tigers).

Judge grew up not far from the Bay Area and championed the Giants and their best player, Barry Bonds, another slugger who could hit for average. He also kept a close eye on Albert Pujols, another hitter who fit into that category.

“Those guys were complete hitters,” Judge said.

It was a steady climb for the 32-year-old to .325. After all, Judge had a miserable first month, hitting .197 after playing on May 2.

But he soon left and his batting average hasn’t dipped below .300 since it was at .299 on June 16.

“It’s the hard way. He doesn’t get infield singles, but all of his doubles. . . he doesn’t have the speed to hit a double against the wall, they’re just all real slugs,” Anthony Rizzo, one of Judge’s best friends on the team, said earlier this season, marveling at Judge’s ability to do both to hit the ball. -plus feet, but also have a batting average over .300. “Guys with speed have slightly different ways (of reaching a high average), sneaking in infield hits and stuff. It’s just a real slug, at bat after at bat. It’s the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen in my career.”

Count Boone was also in that group.

“I don’t want to get hyperbolic and say he’s gone to another level than when he hit 62 home runs and won the MVP. I don’t know if it’s a different level,” Boone said. “But is he incrementally a better hitter today than he was then? I think the answer is yes.”